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 M*tl. RICHARDS'S DISCOURSE 
 
 ON 
 
 MR. WEBSTER. 
 
 A ■»»»■ > 
 
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 Rook.JUAlE^i 
 
DISCOURSE, 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 CENTRAL CHURCH, BOSTON, 
 
 OCTOBER 31, 1852, 
 
 BT 
 
 GEORGE RICHARDS 
 
 o ..■--• 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 42 CONGRESS ST. 
 
 1852. 
 

 Boston, November 10, 1852. 
 
 Rev. and Deae Sir, 
 
 "SN'c desire that your Discourse, on the occasion of the lamented 
 death of Mr. "Webster, repeated on the last Sabbath, may be printed for 
 the use of the members of your Congregation, and for circulation among 
 oiu- friends. "We therefore respcctftdly request that you -w ill furnish us a 
 copy of the same for this purpose. 
 
 We are, dear Sir, your friends and servants, 
 
 Alpheus Hardy. 
 Fkederick Sweetser. 
 Albert Little. 
 Leopold Herman. 
 James C. Converse. 
 J. H. "Ward. 
 H. L. Hazelton. 
 Cuarles Calhoun. 
 SiL-vs P. Meiuam. 
 J. W. "Warren, Jr. 
 
 J 
 
 Boston, December 21, 1852. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 I comply w-ith your request for a copy of my Discourse for the press. 
 
 "Written, as you know, on the spur of the moment, it can claim no place 
 . fiipong foimal and ■ Iflboied eulogies. As a sincere tribute of respect for a 
 '.• jjroai miflO, and character, and lil'c, it is at your disposal. 
 
 "','^ery respectfully, your friend, 
 
 Geo. Richards. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 HEBREWS VII. 4. 
 
 CONSIDER HOW GREAT THIS 3IAN WAS. 
 
 This is a Religious service, — so the Day and the 
 Place admonish us. It is almost a Funereal service. 
 We arc here to roll back the stone from the door of 
 the sepulchre, to uncover the face of the dead, to 
 feel the stillness, the gloom, the chill of the narrow 
 house, to gather lessons that may nerve us for our 
 toils, and gird us for our rest. Assembled, as about 
 the re-opened grave, let one mind animate us, one 
 feeling of fraternity, one sense of accountability, 
 one willingness to learn and to be taught, one desire 
 and purpose to bear hence fitter preparation for our 
 duties and our destinies. 
 
 " God," — said the wise and eloquent preacher, as 
 he stood over the coffin of Louis XIV., — " God 
 
only is great." Met to speak and learn of one, 
 " every inch a king," it is well to recall the senti- 
 ment — God only is great. " He sitteth upon the 
 circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are 
 as grasshoppers." " He bringeth the princes to 
 nothing." " The stars are not pure in his sight ; 
 how much less man that is a worm, and the son of 
 man that is a worm." 
 
 Whenever God addresses us, we are to listen. 
 The voice of his Providence may be as persuasive 
 and as instructive as the voice of his Word. Events 
 occurring under our eye, arresting our notice, filling 
 the public mind, stirring the public heart, — events 
 weighty with solemn admonition, the memory of 
 which goes with us, stays with us, pursues us here, 
 preoccupies our thoughts, may well afford its theme 
 to the pulpit, pass in serious review, be looked at in 
 the light which this Book sheds on every thing tem- 
 poral and every thing eternal. Let us, then, con- 
 sider how great this man was. 
 
 This man. What man ? Need I name him ! 
 He was born on our northern frontiiM". The log 
 cabin, — " raised amid the snow-drifts of New 
 Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the 
 smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled 
 over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence 
 
of a white man's habitation between it and the set- 
 tlements on the rivers of Canada," — had been sup- 
 planted indeed by a frame house ; yet mucli of the 
 rugged sternness, the ahiiost Alpine grandeur of the 
 scenery, remained. 
 
 There the boy hardened into the man. We can 
 see him, wending his way, two and a half and three 
 miles, in mid-winter, to the district school ; thence, 
 its slender aids exhausted, on horseback, with his 
 father, to the Academy ; thence to the minister's, 
 at Boscawen ; thence to Dartmouth College. 
 
 We see him a student of the law, — eking out 
 the narrow means of himself and elder brother, by 
 school teaching. We see him riding the circuits, 
 mingling in the war of giants, — the Masons, Sulli- 
 vans, Dexters, Storys of his day. We see him a 
 Representative in Congress, first from the State of 
 his birth, then from the State of his adoption ; a 
 Member of the Convention that revised the Consti- 
 tution of our Commonwealth ; a Senator in Con- 
 gress ; Secretary of State of the United States ; a 
 private Citizen; Senator; Secretary; — till the more 
 than seventy years' drama closes, and the curtain 
 falls. How great this man was. 
 
 This Man : a description of him in a word. 
 Here was no Scholar versed in sonKj single branch, 
 
— no Genius endowed with some single gift, — no 
 mere Actor on the |)ul)lic stage, — no mere Thinker 
 in secluded privacy ; — a Man, a finished specimen 
 of his race, a concentration of the qualities and 
 properties that make up humanity. 
 
 How GREAT this man was. 
 
 Phijsicalbj he was great. To see him was to 
 notice him, to rememher him, to look after him 
 when he had passed, to point him out to others, to 
 make his face and form, his step and tone, thence- 
 forth the models by which greatness must be tested. 
 Recall him, as you have seen and heard him. 
 
 "With grave 
 Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed 
 A piUar of state ; deep on his front engraven 
 Deliberation sat, and public care. 
 
 . . . Sage he stood 
 W^ith Atlantean shoulders fit to bear 
 The weight of mightiest monarchies ; his look 
 Drew audience and attention still as night 
 Or summer's noontide air." 
 
 hitcllcciunlhj he was great. A great Lawyer, — 
 ill the learninf^: and the practice of his ])rofession, 
 before the court, before the Jury. A great States- 
 man, — as a legislator, as a diplomatist, leaving his 
 mark on the j)oIicy of his own country, and of 
 
foreign states. A great Orator, — before the few, 
 before the many, on topics political, literary, social, 
 religious. A great Writer, — clear, simple, pointed, 
 condensed, the tightened cords of his sentences hold- 
 ing fost the struggling thoughts. A great Farmer, 
 Sportsman, Angler. He could not help it ; his 
 greatness pursued him, like his shadow ; where he 
 went, it went. 
 
 No faculty in particular can be said to have dis- 
 tinguished him. None was unduly cultivated, or 
 unduly exercised. They were a family of Titans, 
 and worked and played together. 
 
 Materials huge, disjointed, discordant, strown 
 here and there, piled in cumbrous and disorderly 
 confusion, he could sort, classify, reduce to method, 
 build into an edifice of Doric grandeur and sim- 
 plicity. On a sudden, that edifice was illuminated ; 
 it blazed with the lights of fancy, wit scintillated 
 alone: its walls, humor shed a mellow radiance, 
 imasination shared the throne with reason. Next, 
 passion was busy at her furnaces, the chill air grew 
 tempered, a genial warmth diffused itself, the dull 
 embers {flowed in the fierce heat. His work com- 
 
 a 
 
 pleted, the enchanter laid down his wand, seemingly 
 unconscious that w hat was so easy to himself, was 
 impossible to others. 
 
8 
 
 And how multiplied these monuments. One 
 looms above the Rock of Plymouth, lighting the 
 path-way of the Pilgrim. One garners the ashes 
 of the Presidents, their imperishable sarcophagus. 
 Two siumount yonder battle-ground, overtopping 
 the granite obelisk. They rise round the tribunals 
 of the law, its munition of rocks. Statelier than 
 the relics of Thebes, they line the avenues and 
 guard the entrances to the temples of freedom and 
 religion. 
 
 The precise rank among intellectual men which 
 this man will hold, it is not for any one age or 
 nation to determine. His own countrvmen must 
 sit in judgment on his fame, measuring him with 
 his contemporaries and predecessors. Men of other 
 lands, not unemulous of rivalry, must weigh him 
 against their sages. Posterity, less jealous, more 
 impartial, must review the testimony and revise the 
 verdict. Age will succeed age, each denying the 
 infallibility of the preceding, and deciding for itself. 
 Meantime, the number and the vouchers of the can- 
 didates will be diminishing. Time, with sieve and 
 crucible, will be sifting the motley sands, and drain- 
 ing the yellow gold. The dull waters of oblivion, 
 chafing, fretting, undermining, overturnins:, will be 
 leaving fewer and ever fewer survivors, in the wide 
 
solitude. The lot of the fame we are considerins: 
 drops into that urn. 
 
 Murallij this man was great. In the larger sense 
 of the word moral, — Voluntary. He was great in 
 the exercise of choice, as well as great in the exer- 
 cise of intelligence. His will was on a par with 
 his other faculties, and, as became it, regulated 
 them. The oflice was no sinecure. Think of an 
 intellect, confident of its resources, that knew what 
 it could do, and could do anything. Think of an 
 imagination of prodigal endowment, that could load 
 down ideas with images, till they reeled under them. 
 Think of passions, not quick to move, but, once 
 roused, stronger than Samson, in his locks, pulling 
 down column and temple on his enemies. 
 
 What was to hold these forces in subjection, 
 keep each to the path prescribed to it, allot each 
 its share of responsibility — no more, no less ? The 
 will, if anything. The will did it. Like Phaethon, 
 it drove the chariot of the sun ; unlike him, held car 
 and coursers to their orbit. 
 
 There is a higher sense of the word moral, — 
 Upright, conformed to duty. In this sense, moral- 
 ity is a science and a life ; it may be taught, and 
 it may be practiced. This man taught it. He 
 grasped its princij)les as he grasped all principles, 
 
10 
 
 and illustrated them, and enforced them. His 
 works are a store-house of sound and solid ethics. 
 It would be hard to find in any writings, — the 
 Bible excluded, — loftier, purer, more just, more 
 discriminating rules for our conduct, as men, as 
 citizens, as members of one vast confederacy of 
 States, and one vaster confederacy of Nations, than 
 are to be found distributed through the essays, 
 addresses, arguments, orations, letters, which con- 
 stitute his legacy to his country and mankind. 
 
 Ethics may be taught, and they may be practiced. 
 Did he practice them ? Was he as great in the 
 discharge of duty as in the inculcation of it ? 
 If he was, he was great indeed. Few of us, 
 probably, had that personal and intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the man, with his private walks, and his 
 private manners, that would justify us either in 
 affirming or denying. To err is human. Com- 
 manding talent and position bring sore temptations. 
 They expose, too, peculiarly to the vcnomed arrows 
 of detraction. It is better to pray for the great 
 than to defame them. They need, like the rest 
 of us, the palliating charity of their fellows, and the 
 mercy of their God. " Who art thou that judgest 
 another man's servant ' to his own master he stand- 
 eth or falleth." 
 
11 
 
 There is yet a higher sense of the word moral, — 
 Religious. Was this man a religious man ? Here, 
 as before, my appeal is to the record, — to what I 
 know, not what I do not. The answer is the same. 
 As he stands before his age and country, and will 
 stand before posterity, — in his writings and trans- 
 mitted sayings, — he was profoundly religious. That 
 fact cannot be exorcised from his pages. What 
 wonder? His range was too comprehensive, too 
 far-sighted, to stop short w^ith time. The material- 
 ism that rests contented with the present, that 
 abjures serious inquiry, that claims kindred with the 
 clod and with the worm, that regards Deity as a 
 phantom, piety as superstition, death as an eternal 
 sleep, found no foothold in his manly and thoughtful 
 spirit. He could not believe it, if he would ; and 
 he would not, if he could. He was himself its suffi- 
 cient refutation. He rot under the sod ! His light 
 go out in darkness ! Never. His mighty instincts 
 drew him to God. His deep want implored a Reve- 
 lation. Who less than Apostles and Prophets could 
 instruct him ? Away with your philosophy ! He 
 knew that already. His lead had sounded it, and 
 struck bottom, and come back unsatisfied. Only 
 not inspired, he only needed inspiration. If God 
 would speak to him, he would listen, — but man I 
 
12 
 
 God did speak to him. He was a diligent reader 
 and an ardent admirer of the Scriptures. " Once 
 every year," he said, '• I go through witii them." 
 He would recite Job and Isaiah to lawyers and 
 statesmen, till, as one said, they knew that the 
 writers were inspired, or he was. Had he done no 
 more than to lend his sanction to the Bible ; in an 
 age when infidelity, never more brazen-faced in its 
 assumptions, insinuates itself into school and univer- 
 sity, depraves the press, corrupts private and public 
 morals, claims almost exclusive title to learning and 
 philosophy, — had he but rebuked its arrogance, put 
 his heel on its pretensions, silenced its impudence, 
 borne his willing witness to a faith whose vows he 
 had assumed, whose solemn ordinances he statedly 
 frequented, whose institutions he assisted to main- 
 tain, the i)older features of whose creed he helped 
 to illustrate and substantiate, he would not have 
 liv(;d in vain. 
 
 How great this man avas. Plaintive and sad th(> 
 cadence, — was. A week ago, to-day, the Sab- 
 bath sun not yet tinging the eastern wave, dark- 
 ness on land and sea, — the last act of the great 
 drama closed. For a year there had been premo- 
 nitions of decay. Accident had accelerated its pro- 
 gress. It was rumored and gained credence that 
 
13 
 
 his health was seriously impaired ; tliat friends and 
 physicians grew solicitous ; that the symptoms were 
 hourly aggravating ; that the worst was feared ; 
 that life was despaired of. 
 
 Then the great heart of society stood still. Then 
 men spoke in whispers, and eyed anxiously each 
 other, and waited for evil tidings, and hoped, and 
 wept, and prayed, till that signal gun ! — and a 
 widowed Nation was in weeds. 
 
 The close was characteristic of the man. No 
 bustle. No disorder. Always the right thing in 
 the right place. The public business was disposed 
 of ; directions given about the ftirms ; bequests 
 made to individuals ; farewells addressed to friends. 
 The will is executed : — " I thank God for strength 
 to perform a sensible act." 
 
 He prays, in tones at first low and indistinct, but 
 risinir, swellinir, till every svllable becomes audible, 
 — ending, " Almighty God, receive me to thyself, 
 for Jesus Christ's sake." He makes formal profes- 
 sion of his faith. He thinks aloud, " What would 
 be the condition of any of us, without the hope of 
 immortality ? What sure basis for that hope is 
 there but the Gospel ? " 
 
 " Poetry, poetry," he murmurs ; " Gray, Gray." 
 Extracts from the Elegy are repeated. Is he think- 
 
14 
 
 ing of the graves, the old Puritan graves, amid 
 which his dust is to be laid ? 
 
 " Beneath those rugged ehns, that 3'ew tree's shade, 
 Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering Iicap, 
 Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
 
 Tlie rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." 
 
 Or is he thinking of his own narrow house, 
 and the thronging nuiltitudes, and the uttered 
 praise ? 
 
 " Can storied urn, or animated bust, 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
 Can Honor's voice provoke tlie silent dust, 
 
 Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death ? " 
 
 The process of djing is inquired into, his mind 
 dwells on it, investigates it, would know the stages 
 and gradations. To divert his thoughts, the Scrip- 
 ture is repeated, " Though I walk through the val- 
 ley," &c. " The fact," says he ; " the fact, that 
 is what I want," — the physiological fact he was 
 inquiring into ; then, aftiT a pause, reverting to the 
 text, " Thy rod— thy staff." " I shall be to-night," 
 says he, " in life, and joy, and blessedness." The 
 night came and went, and then the words, })ro- 
 phetic of two immortalities, " ] still live." 
 
15 
 
 He was buried on Friday. It was a private 
 funeral, — so he had directed. It well became him. 
 The Secretary of State had resigned ; the candi- 
 date for the Presidency had withdrawn ; the land- 
 holder had relinquished his estates ; he brought 
 nothing into this world, it was certain he could 
 carry nothing out. A private funeral. The silver 
 poplar he had planted spread its arms above his 
 bier. Old neighbors and townsmen held up the 
 trailing pall. The lowing herds watched as he rode 
 by. A private funeral. Yet his Country was there. 
 That village bell waked the echoes of a Continent. 
 The tramp of the slow procession stilled the pulses 
 of the world. 
 
 " He was a man, take him for all in all, 
 We shall not look upon his like again." 
 
 Consider how great this man was. Why con- 
 sider ? That we may be Grateful. Such a Mind 
 is a public benefaction. As the mere object of 
 study and contemplation, it is as well worth our 
 notice, better worth our notice, than the mountain, 
 the lake, the cataract which we travel leagues to 
 visit. It gives us a truer conception of the Inlinite, 
 — Himself a mind,— the author of this mind, and 
 of all minds, who gave it, and has recalled it. It 
 
16 
 
 conduces to self-knowledge, affording the magni- 
 fied, colossal image of ourselves. These all should 
 awaken gratitude. 
 
 Then, again, the life we are considering was 
 a well-spring of Public Benefits. It was spent 
 largely in public service, spent in positions of 
 authority and trust, in Cabinets, and Councils, 
 and Halls of Legislation. The value of those ser- 
 vices, as a whole, — not this page, nor that page, 
 — but as a whole, will hardly be questioned. Con- 
 stantly adding to the dignity, the security, the pros- 
 perity of his country, he seemed, at times, its 
 saviour. He rewelded the loosening links of the 
 Confederacy. He cemented the cracked and reft 
 foundations. Interests local and sectional avoided 
 him. A mind wide enough for empires, it was 
 less his virtue than his necessity, that he em- 
 braced the whole. Nor did he stop with country. 
 He had a voice for Greece ; tones of sympathy 
 for the South American Republics ; a kindly word 
 for Hungary. The myrmidons of Des[)otism shook 
 at his trumpet-blast. His pen of iron wrote their 
 doom along the wall. Land and sea, to-day, spread 
 the stiller and serener round that sleeper ; for the 
 silken bands of his Treaties bind the jieace of the 
 World. 
 
17 
 
 Let us consider, too, to be Humble. We need 
 adversity. Its thorny coronet befits us. Rarely 
 are blessings, public or private, prized, till they are 
 lost. Wrenched from us, we learn their value. Our 
 rulers should be oftener in our thoughts, oftener on 
 our hearts. We should pray more for them, in the 
 closet, at the fireside, amid our children, in our 
 sanctuaries ; ])ray that they may be good as well 
 as great ; that ambition may not lure them from 
 the narrow way, nor adulation spoil with self- 
 conceit ; pray that, giddy with earthly elevation, 
 they lose not the durable distinction and the imper- 
 ishable crown. The past is unalterable, but not 
 the future. The proof of penitence is reformation. 
 Be the shroud and the pall for the dead, sackcloth 
 and ashes for the living. 
 
 Let us consider, to be Thoughtful, That tomb 
 is fruitful of sussestions. To think that its inmate 
 
 CIO 
 
 is hid from us, forever ; that we shall no more 
 encounter him in the busy street, nor along the 
 winding shore ; read no more the chronicle of his 
 departure and return, his health and sickness, his 
 victory and defeat. Cities no more will keep holi- 
 day, to grace his triumph, nor village pour out its 
 population, sire and son, matron and maid, to wel- 
 come him. The ^reat cause will miss its advocate, 
 
18 
 
 the law its luminous expounder, the constitution 
 its defender, — all shrunk into that little grave. 
 Weighty questions of diplomacy, that involve the 
 war and peace of nations, that harass tin? public 
 mind, and burden the public heart, must find other 
 elucidation. lie has no more light to shed, nor 
 policy to prescribe. " Put not your trust in princes." 
 " Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his 
 help." 
 
 Then another thought, — our own mortality. We 
 are here on our way to the grave. One event hap- 
 peneth unto all. One barrier intercepts every pros- 
 pect. The small and the great are there. The 
 communism of tlie dust — how absolute ! No ques- 
 tions of precedence, no disputes for place, no fa\A n- 
 ing obsequiousness, no domineering pride, across 
 that threshold. A tomb, the Mecca of thronging 
 pilgrims, or a stoneless mound, — it is all the same. 
 Monument and euloiry, dirge and requiem, are for 
 the living, never for the dead. 
 
 Another thought, — the preparation for eternity. 
 What is it ? I point vou, for an answer, not to the 
 pulpit, but to the press. Read the religious and 
 the irreligious Journals, the literary and the political. 
 What say they ? What fits for the dying hour, 
 and the scenes beyond ? Not fame nor 2;reatness. 
 
19 
 
 Penitence toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. For these, men wait ahout the portals, and 
 bend over tlie pillow, and count the ebbing pulses, 
 and list to the faltering breath. These, uttered, are 
 remembered, are recorded, are stamped on the 
 printed page, are dropped in the listening ear ; 
 hearts beat with invigorated hope, eyes stream with 
 grateful joy. The preparation for eternity, — a 
 labor for a life, not for its hurrying close ; the 
 silver cord loosing, the golden bowl breaking, the 
 pitcher breaking at the fountain, the wheel break- 
 ing at the cistern, the dust returning to the earth 
 as it was, the spirit to God who gave it. 
 
 Another thought, — our destined greatness. We 
 see what is before us. That quick opening, ([uick 
 shutting gate, that lets out, moment by moment, 
 other and yet other travelers, lets in glimpses and 
 vistas of the undiscovered country. The intellect, 
 whose great range and compass we admired, not 
 emulated, we are to rival, to surpass, to look back 
 on, to lose sight of, at some stage in that long pro- 
 iiression. What will there not be time for, in eter- 
 nity ? His greatness, and more, our own. This it 
 is, to be born, to die, to strike into a path that hath 
 no end. 
 
 One other thought, — that eternity so near us. 
 

 20 
 
 The way seems darkened by its shadows. We feel 
 the breath of the winds that sweep over its shore- 
 less waters. ' I still live,' said he — and vanished 
 amid the thronging phantoms. 
 
 We bore his ashes to the grave, — he had deserted 
 them. They had been rifled of their pride. The 
 regal majesty had departed. It was dust to dust. 
 But up, through that open sepulchre, rolled back 
 on us the accents that almost chided our solemn 
 obsequies, — 
 
 I STILL LIVE. 
 
 LBJL '05 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS